"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education." Martin Luther King, Jr. There are many problems with the education system in America. As country's from around the world start to reform and rethink how they educate their youth to better suit the progression of science and technology in the world economies, the United States is falling sorely behind. With the global economy ramping up competition in almost every field it is more important than ever to prepare students for the future. The problem is that all students don't get an equal education as Malcom X argues, "When you live in a poor neighborhood, you are living in an area where you have to have poor schools. When you have poor schools, you have poor teachers. When you have poor teachers, you get a poor education. When you get a poor education, you are destined to be a poor man and a poor woman the rest of your life.".
The way the education system is set up in America is unequal and what drives this inequality in education is social class. For example in Jean Anyon's The Social Class and The Hidden Curriculum of Work she describes how different schools are organized and taught based on the income of the parents and community in general. The author describes how in the working class schools students are drilled on their subjects, how the students have almost no choice and .
how the students are never given an explanation as to why the work is being assigned or how it connects to the bigger picture. In contrast the middle class schools focus on getting the right answer with more options of how you get the right answer but still lacking the elaboration of subjects or reasoning behind it. The professional school focuses more on creativity and individual thought than on the right answer, students have more freedom as far as how the course .
